Road to crushing high stakes PLO

Yeah thats the idea once I get my routine and volume going. Maybe in the new year.

zachary... not CrazyZachary is it by any chance?

Apps and coin.

Update

Poker

Physical recovery is still dictating my poker. I played a few days of very strong poker, made some really good adjustments vs another very strong player who’s stream I have been watching. I was able to verify later on his stream that all the adjustments were good/lucky in that particular case.

I would love to share some breakdowns of hands but at this point it’s a lot of player/pool specific adjustments that I don’t feel comfortable sharing as my opponents might also read this blog.

Then I get KOd by coma sleep for days on end. Discipline is useless in combatting this: anytime I try to get up and play regardless I just play like a total fish, one such attempt a few days ago let to me straight up donating a stack which I felt horrible about. The only answer here is patience. It’s a long road.

Training is going good.

Todays workout was 1h of steep climbing followed by
3x12x32kg one arm kb cleans
8x48, 12x40 one arm kb row
3x12 rev lunge up to 32+large band

I repeat a variation to this every other day. 1h of cardio followed by 3-4 heavy compounds with kbs. I immerse myself in 4-5* water afterwards for a few mins.

Feel fairly strong when I do this. Just tired a lot.

Patience is the next phase. Play some softer line ups, study multi-way spots theory. Get my grind environment ready to hit it hard when my body and energy levels are ready.

Have you ever found your game has deteriorated in a basic way? Like Cbet % drops like a rock, 3bet % skyrockets or something over a reasonable sample.

Yes, mostly just over adjusting to a couple of awful regs and then it filters down.

Yeah that makes sense.

Do you study a specific spot multiple times over the course of a month? Or do you just go through it once and remember what you learned?

Examples of inspiration and bullshitters.

I love poker and have an enormous respect for those that pursue and perform greatness. I have an equal disdain for bullshittors that pretend to be good players so they can sell crappy content to beginners.

An example of a great player in the making is Portemillos blog. Natural aggression, nuanced perspective on situation, critical of his own play evidenced by a lot of thoughtful reflection.

Some examples of bullshittors:

Jnandez. I played a few hands with him last week at 10/20 on coin. He is the weakest regular I have ever played with at 10/20 and I highly doubt is profitable even at 2/5 without strict game selection. The problem here is that he markets himself as a HS PLO player. All the content on his site is from 0.5/1 and 1/2 players.

Luke Johnson/Clanty
A good example of someone that markets himself as a strong player and probably genuinly believes that. If you look more closely at his poker it is random aggression and fancy looking bluffs that are massively ev-. Little self reflection and all ego; claimed a few years ago to be +ev in nl10k vs the line up: Stefan, Munez, Davy, Nacho. Lmfao. Does not beat 10/20 online.

Hope this helps you choose what content to consume.

Jnandez isn't regarded as a top reg by most decent PLO regs from what I know. But he definitely crushes live poker where he's living now, and is a good businessman so gotta give props for that.

I have no problem with that.

But he markets himself as a HS online reg to people that can’t tell the difference.

If you pretend to be something that you’re not to sell products to people that don’t know any better then you’re going to get called out on it.

Hey crimson. I would love to hear some of your insights on what are some factors that differentiates say a player like jnandez, versus someone in top 10% of PLO. Ive always felt that the best players are a mixture of both solver solution mixed in with human exploits vs the field. Jnandez seems to also believe in this methodology, but what makes his game or style worse compared to say a top tier reg? thanks for the input

Mix of max exploit and thurough understanding of GTO is def the way.

What seperates the best players is intensity.

An inherent intuition for aggression

Incredible nuance and thoughtfulness to details. The best player I know personally plays very intuitive/feel but with incredible attention to detail of the exact spot.

Hand reading skills and an understanding of human player dynamics

Extremely critical of their own plays. This is very important. Good players will wonder why their bluff didnt get through. Bad players will justify their punt.

Also more nuanced understanding of GTO

Agree with everything you said. Intuition is so important in PLO more so than any form of poker. Naturally intuitive players who understand GTO AND people are the best ones to do it. Hoping to get there one day thanks for the s/o. I can’t speak on jnandez I actually met him in Vegas/ I respect what’s he’s done for the game and I actually think the PLO mastermind is good content, not going to speak to his actual abilities online bc I haven’t played w him.

I think it’s a solid beginner intro to plo.

The trainer is genuinly a valuable tool.

It’s just that the marketing himself as a successful online HS player is dishonest. People should know that this content will
not get you there.

It reminds me of that Charlie Munger quote.

“I was in Minnesota and I was buying a fishing lure. And I looked at them and they were pink and green and so I asked the shopkeeper, do fish really take this lure? And the old-timer behind the counter said, Mister, I don't sell to fish.”

If you have to give 2 nl and 2 plo content creators worth watching their videos who would you choose?

Even if they just have courses not only some youtube channel or rio coaches

Theres the israeli NL player that always looks super anxious when he's explaining, but its really solid. Forgot his name. From recent years

Galfond is solid for plo. There is no other proper plo content imo. but Jnandez does have fine beginner material.

Get a solver and try to figure things out yourself is the way to really learn.

I believe you are thinking of Uri Peleg and I agree.

Uri Peleg?

yes thats the guy😃

I'm a bit surprised about your comments on Nandez. I respect you and I'm only a 100PLO scrub, so I would lean toward me missing the mark here, but I always thought Nandez was solid if not somewhat underrated in a way. He's not a top player and doesn't claim to be one, but I imagine he is solid at HS. I remember watching VeniVidi -- I don't recall him say anything negative about Nandez's game -- and he did say that while they both share a lot of the same knowledge, what separates them is that Veni executes better. I always thought that Nandez has good explanations, thoughtful analysis, and doesn't hide his mistakes. So, I don't really see him as a bullshitter or dishonestly marketing himself. He's also shown great results in the past couple of years. I also like a lot of the coaches he has had on his site like Suhepx, Shuller, and Lokfable. That's just my 2c, but again, I'm not that experienced so what do I know!

One other thing I do think is interesting that you talk about is balancing solver knowledge and intuition. For me personally, I'm trying to rely on my intuition more as I usually kick myself when my intuition says to do one thing (which would have been correct), but then I override my intuition because "the solver says to do this". Especially in games where your opponents are not playing solver-based lines - I think you have to be more creative in these situations.

What I don't really get... PLO is easy AF, how can anyone with a brain be a full time player and not completely crush the game lol?

You can literally wait for the nuts against fish and make a lot of money. Where's that rocket science?

I was actually contemplating PM'ing you to get in touch for potentially some coaching, but figured this post would be better.

The rake is huge.

If u wanna start out at micros. Theres only a select few places to play at where the rake is less than 10bb/100. Some sites/apps is like way over 20bb/100.

It’s not just about nutpeddling. Granted this strat works well in low stakes games against soft opposition. But you can’t crush bigger games this way, perceptive opponents will see right through your strategy and quickly adjust by overfolding against you. You have to keep them guessing too and have some bluffs.

here comes myself stacking off with 5 high flushes and and trips on paired boards. i guess i am braindead

Haha yeah the latter is very relatable. I'm still torn about the right exact balance between intuition and solver. Sometimes your intuition also fools you.

Its super frustrating when you pay a valuebet in spite of your intuition because you don't want to go too far out of range. But then sometimes I show a hh to a friend where I make a fold because of intuition and he's like "??? you folded a fullhouse" and I look at it again and go oh **** what the hell did i do.

About Jnandez, I think his material is great intro to plo and he's a savy businessman. Props to him.

The part that I don't like is him marketing himself as a HS reg, for example when asked if he's in the op 10 he could just say answer with "I'm just a midstakes reg but I love explaining theory to you guys" but instead responds that its hard to say because there are different formats like hu vs 6m vs short stack so hard to put an exact top 10. Along with marketing very specific games that were pre agreed upon like action vs sammy or 500/1k on coin which is probably not for real money as if he's a regular in those.

Or incorrectly critiquing actually good HS play where he's either plain wrong or focusing on irrelevant details like this player made a -0.05bb mistake preflop.

His material is great intro to range construction but misses IMO what poker is really about. I think understanding theory is about a lot more than just knowing what blockers are good to play here and there. Its about really understanding interactions and ratio's and how to adjust them to your opponent. I think people deserve to know that following the path laid out on that site will not and can not get you beyond 1/2.

Venividi on the other hand is a very good, very smart and humble player. I like the guy. He made a million this year. I think watching his stream is great. Striking about him is indeed that his overall approach and execution is really good and his theory a little weaker.

We must have been playing against each other